2010 Haiti Earthquake #8

For the people that are reading this blog, I had a little I guess you could say a contest of sorts at the end of my second blog. The first person to comment a disaster, that disaster I will do a blog segment on and also mention them in the blog. So the winner of this contest is (drum roll please).......... Matthew Bolton! Not a surprise because I was talking to him and told him to read my first post right after I was done, but I do thank him for reading my blog and participating in this game of mine and all the others that participated and are reading (but I'm thanking Matt the most because he's a winner). I was trying to avoid doing two types of the same disaster one after the other but what convinced me to accually go through with it (besides the whole contest thing to be fair) was that this one is souly an earthquake. The past one is both earthquake and tsunami, so I went through with it. 

One more thing before I start with the disaster of Matt's choice of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, I wanted to mention that I have put a game on my blog that is quite fun, you all should play it (link at the bottom of the page). PG-13 because you kill people with disasters. I think everyone is of age. I have also added a voting box where you can vote on what you guys think is the worst disaster between four choices and I will take it into consideration for other posts (No I won't it's my opinion on what is going to be on my blog. Felt powerful didn't ya? This ain't no democracy, this is my monarchy. Anyways, let's start with with the actual disaster shall we?

                                I wanted to start with a picture to give a visual of the damage

                                was caused in this earthquake because it's really important.

So this earthquake had started January 12th, 2010, in places such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic and others in the area. The reason I think it's mostly reffered as the Haiti earthquake is that Haiti was the most effected by the whole thing. The initial magnitude was 7.0 which is pretty high and had multiple aftershocks at magnitudes of around 5.9. What I've learned reading up on earthquakes and just humain stupidity with the logic we have. It's not the initial earthquake that kills the most of the people, it's the aftershocks that kill more because we constantly underestimate stuff like this. We get a 7.0 and we think that that's it for the disaster, we don't think of aftershocks. People are unready for the multiple aftershocks and they just die. Well, aftershocks and starvation after the destruction of fields and stores that the people go through. 

                                Here are the areas that were affected by the earthquake that I

                                had found quite interesting. (It's big because I wanted to make

                                sure that the names are clearly visable)

Another big factor that makes disasters in this type of region is the living conditions. Have you seen the houses in the first picture? How they're all really close to eachother? That makes a disaster even worse because there is a higher density of population in the area. The population density in Haiti is 374 people per square kilometer. Now let's use Canada as example, it's population density is 4. No if this happened in let's say a square kilometer. In Haiti, 374 are affected by this earthquake, in Canada only 4 people are. With that logic, I'd rather this had happened in Canada instead. Back on track, that population doesn't only mean more people get affected, with all the houses, it makes it harder to escape from debris and such, it also makes it harder to evacuate people, reach people and help injured people. With over 3,500,000 people affected by the earthquake, 300,00 injured and 220.000 estimated dead, this was definetly a very affecting disaster and I definetly think it's in the right spot in the countdown to #1.

I want to thank all the readers and all of you that are commenting to help me improve my blog it's been a real help. Thanks to Matt again for picking a fitting #8. Keep reading everyone, remember it just keeps getting better and more interesting as we go along. Sorry I didn't put a video on this time. It was late and I really enjoy sleep.

Till next time!  

Sources:

-http://www.britannica.com/event/Haiti-earthquake-of-2010 

-http://www.dec.org.uk/articles/haiti-earthquake-facts-and-figures

-https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1JUFK_enCA506CA510&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=haiti%27s+population+density

2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami #9

I just wanted to say a few things before I start the next blog post, and I have a good one for you guys. Last post, I had put a lot of information regarding Hurricane Katrina which is really good but as we were told in class, it has to be 90% opinion bassed. don't get me wrong there's going to be some information, there's just not going to be as much as last time. If you guys want to know more about the next disaster, I will post a link under this paragraph to direct you to a good site where I got some of my information and you guys can always look at the sources that I post at the end of the post. Thank you guys for reading my blog and I really hope to keep you guys as viewers.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1227_041226_tsunami_2.html

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for... this disaster will be (if you haven't read the title which is unlikely but i do this for anticipation...) the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami. Let me tell you guys and girlds, from what i can see already, this is going to be a good one trust me.

We all know what tsunamis are, but if you don't I will try and explain in my own words what it is. So they're basically giant waves caused by earthquakes kinda like the ones you see at the beach or that surfers surf on in the movies but think about them if they are at least 4 times bigger and wider and has the capability to kill people, damage/bury cities and topple buildings. Scary right? I think so, heck I'd be terrified if one came coming at me.

Here's a random tsunami that I found on google images. This 

image honestly made me shiver, but it's the reality of what 

tsunamis are and the capabilities of destruction on a city. 

This tsunami happened December 26, 2004 in the Indian ocean. Ummmmm, i actually cried when i saw this so i'm going to share it. Apprently this earthquake had "released the energy of 23,000 atomic bombs like the type dropped on Hiroshima". That is absolutely insane! That alone makes this one of the worst natural disasters in my books, but we are far from done my friends. It had a magnitude at the center of the earthquake of 9.0. The highest in the world is I think a 9.5 if i remember correctly, I'll have to watch San Andreas again to be sure. That's .6 away from having the biggest magnitude in the history ever recorded. According to my source, it shot out multiple tsunamis at the speed of a jet airliner. That is a speed on average of  885km/h. Now obviously they slowed down by the time they got to land but still that is pretty quick and that would have caused a lot of damage if it kept up a speed like that by the time it hit land. That would be absolutely devastating on any city, even ones that would have some defence against something like this.

A picture of the Indian ocean to give an idea where this 

happened and what areas were mostly affected by this disaster. 

This tsunami in total had between 14 countries a death toll of around 150,000 people. That is huge but thats not the worst of it because that's just from the tsunami and the tremble of the earthquake. The combined two have now flooded farms and stores where people can get food. Now, they have to worry about starvation because they now have less supplies for people but not dehydration since they have water everywhere! (that was dark my bad) They say at the end, over 200,00 people died. That's a lot more than Katina over 109 times the death in this disaster. just the sheer number of deaths that were caused by this disaster is unsettling to me. Just imagine, pretty much all of windsor, dead. Just like that in the matter of a day or two. And that's just death tolls. Many more were injured in this either by the water or falling buildings. Honestly, I really don't think they're could've been much avoiding this. It happened in a short period of time. To me, they're would've been no time to escape unless you're not near the water. All they could've done was prey.

        A video of the tsunami hitting the beach.

Enjoy...

Enough of this depressing subject. toon in next time kids where if you leave a disaster in the comments, I'm going to do a blog on it. First come, First served so comment now if not, it's probaly going to be as depressing as this one.

sources:
-http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1227_041226_tsunami_2.html             (again)
-The movie: San Andreas
-https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=average%20speed%20of%20jet%20airliner
-http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/12/ten-years-since-the-2004-indian-ocean-tsunami/100878/

Hurricane Katrina #10

I wanted to start off my blog with a very well known natural disaster. As the title says, its Hurricane Katrina. Its said to be one of the deadliest hurricanes to ever hit the United States to date. It was formed about 200 miles from the Bahamas Augest 23, 2005 and was only considered a tropical storm. As it was making its way down to Florida, it stopped over the Gulf of Mexico and gaining a lot of speed. Reaching wind speeds up to 175 mph overseas which is a Category 5 and when it hit land, slowed to 140 mph a Category 3. Hitting alongside the border between Louisiana and Mississippi Augest 29. After reaching around the center of Mississippi it was said to be a Category 1 then after six hours, the horrible storm then was difined as a tropical storm and finally dissipated and was absorbed by a frontal zone.  Causing over 100 billion in U.S. dollars between the winds destroying houses, throwing things and the massive flooding. They say an estimated 1,833 people were killed by the hurricane, mostly by the flooding. The flooding caused by the hurricane when it would destroy the weak levees and drainage cannals was more devistating than the hurricane itself. It caused most of the casualties and the damage which is to me, very surprising. 80% of New Orleans was completely flooded and some of the surounded area. New Orleans is 350 sq miles, 80% of that is 280. 280 sq miles of New Orleans was supmerged in water, to me that's a little scary to think that a storm that started with winds of 40 mph winds could do such a thing. 

Here is a picture of some of the flooding caused 

by Hurricane Katrina.

To me, this is absolutely one of the worst natural disasters that has ever been recorded in history. Its not at all the fact that it has a higher casualtie count, its the amount of damage asnd the potential that this storm could've had. This storm caused the gouverment of the United States over 100 000 000 000 dollars, a 12 digit number, that's huge in my opinion. Seeing the information about this hurricane makes me realise something, it could've been a lot worse then people may think and that scrares me a little. Remember how I had mentioned that Hurricane Katrina had mannaged to become a Cat. 5 hurricane as it stopped over the Gulf of Mexico and that it lowered down before making landfall? Now imagine if it the winds didn't slow down, imagine if it didn't lower to a Cat. 3 and it stayed a Cat. 5 with winds of 175 mph instead of 140 mph. How much deadlier would Hurricane Katrina have become? According to my math, it would've become 1.25X stronger. Thats an extra 25 billion dollars and 438 dead people. That's horrible, but let's be thankful that it did slow down before it hit Louisiana and Mississippi. Im going to be honest, the people of New Orleans and others are very stupid. In the past century between 1915 and 2005, there has been 6 hurricanes that have flooded New Orleans. Now I got to thinking, if that has happened in the past, you'd think that they would have come up with a good mesure to diminish the casualties and the damage. Now i don't doubt that they have, but I think they'd have it down by like the fourth time this has happened. since this is a recurring event, they should be prepared whenever they think a hurricane is about to hit. What's that expression? Ah yes, better safe then sorry. If there is a storm that is amassing somewhere that has the possibility to go up and hit the area, they should prepare to diminish the overall damage. It took the storm around six days to go from the Bahamas to Mississippi and such. I think that;s enough time to prepare for  it don't you think? To conclude, this was definetly one of the worst disasters and most damaging, but i really think it could've been worse but on the other side it could've also been less effecting.   

Here's a time lapse of the path that Hurricane

Katrina took from beginning to end.

Sources:
-http://list25.com/25-worst-natural-disasters-recorded/
-http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina
-http://www.livescience.com/22522-hurricane-katrina-facts.html
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans